Getty Image / Todd Kirkland
We’ll likely never see Tua Tagovailoa in an Alabama jersey ever again after the junior quarterback suffered a gruesome, season-ending hip injury during his team’s win over Mississippi State. He underwent surgery to repair the damage on Monday in Houston.
Here's what happened to Tua, got injured, carted off.pic.twitter.com/wH2LpQ0crB
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) November 16, 2019
Any injury to any player is devastating, but a season-ending injury tops the list of bad moments in sports and given Tagovailoa’s current situation there are plenty of question marks surrounding his future.
He was, and perhaps still will be, toward the top of 2020 NFL Mock Draft boards if surgery, rehab and combine efforts go as planned, but some teams may shy away from selecting Tagovailoa early in the draft given his injury history. On top of the hip injury, he battled ankle injuries all season long and underwent a ‘tight-rope’ surgery just a few weeks before injuring his hip.
Former NFL head coach Rex Ryan seems to think there could be a positive come out of all of this in the long-run for Tua and wherever he lands in the NFL.
“Maybe a really good football team that had no business being able to pick up a top-five player in the Draft can benefit. Just throwing it out there, maybe if New England picks him up because Brady can’t play forever , somebody like that, Philip Rivers, some team that had no business being able to get this guy might be getting him.”
All of this is completely speculative of course, but Ryan’s speculation here may not be that far off when the NFL Draft does roll around.
A team is going to draft Tagovailoa, likely in the first round still regardless of the injury history, but he could easily fall outside of the Top 10 or so meaning he could go to a team that’s closer to being a legitimate contender unlike the likes of the Bengals, Dolphins or even Broncos.